A man was mauled to death by a lion from a Ghana zoo last Sunday after allegedly trying to steal one of his cubs.
The incident occurred around 12: 00 local time at Accra Zoo, the capital of Ghana. The unidentified man, believed to be about 40 years old, was first seen jumping a security fence at the park and making his way into a lion enclosure, according to The Telegraph.
At the time he entered the space, there were two white lion cubs in the enclosure with their mother. The adult lion reportedly pounced on the man as soon as he saw him enter the enclosure.
“Lions have cubs, so if you get too close, they can feel like you’re trying to take their babies,” Benito Owusu Bio, Ghana’s deputy minister of land and natural resources, told local journalists in a statement after the incident.
“We ask the public to desist from doing something like this”, he added.
So far, the authorities have stressed that the man’s motives for entering the premises are unknown. However, it is strongly suspected that he was attempting to steal at least one of the puppies, due to his rarity.
Following the incident, the man’s body was successfully removed from the enclosure and taken to a morgue. The investigation into the situation is ongoing, and zoo officials are cooperating with local law enforcement. All Accra Zoo facilities remained open after the incident.
“After examination necessary forensics from the scene, the body was removed and deposited in the Police Hospital morgue for preservation and autopsy,” the Accra Police Service said in a statement. “Police are working with zoo management and the forestry commission to get to the bottom of this unfortunate incident.”
The cubs are white lions, a condition caused by a rare genetic mutation in lions from southern Africa that makes its fur a lighter color.
Considered sacred in some African cultures, white lions are heavily targeted by poachers for their value in illicit markets. Experts estimate that only a dozen white lions currently exist in the wild, with the cubs at Accra Zoo bred from two adults with the correct recessive traits to produce the effect.
A small population of white lions is believed to live in Ghana’s Mole National Park, according to the BBC, at approximately 680 kilometers north of Accra.
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